INTERNET EDUCATION WORKSHOP FOR RURAL ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE STAFF

28 Rural Electric Cooperative professionals recently spent fifteen hours browsing, zipping, decoding, searching, downloading and avoiding viruses. No, it wasn't a course on espionage or communicable diseases. Central Missouri Regional Information Technology Specialists Don Day and Maryann Redelfs presented the 15 hour training on Internet education.

"I had no idea of how to use the Internet. I'm very excited to take the information back to the office," commented one participant. "Very good class! Very well organized and presented," offered another. Participants especially keyed in on the information presented on electronic mail and searching the World Wide Web. The course went beyond a basic introduction of these functions and included discussion about encoding and decoding e-mail messages as well as zipping and unzipping messages. The Web discussion delved into search engines, web browsers and downloading information from the Information Superhighway.

Evaluation of the course indicates that it was quite effective. There was a statistically significant increase in knowledge and use of the Internet reported by the participants at the .0001 level. Day and Redelfs were quite complementary of the REC staffs interest and background that the learner's brought to the class. In aggregate, the participants started the course having had some instruction and having used the Internet some. Thanks to the learner's attentiveness and hard work at the conclusion of the class the REC staff, in aggregate, were confident that they could provide information to others and answer other's questions about the Internet.

The two day training generated an interest in 92% of those responding to the survey question (23 out of 25 respondents) to have further training on such topics as web pages, expanding Internet services to cooperative members, list serves, and exploring the World Wide Web further. The group was sensitive to the need for frequent training updates on the Internet.

(Programmers Don Day and Maryann Redelfs, Evaluating and Reporting Cynthia Crawford)

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